Walia promises care homes

Delhi Health Minister Kiran Walia on Tuesday said care homes will be set up in Delhi government hospitals for unclaimed accident victims in a comatose state.

“I understand that our trauma centres are burdened with a substantial number of such patients and we need to look for ways to tackle this problem. We have one such facility at Guru Tegh Bahadur (GTB) Hospital and plan to have more in other Delhi government hospitals,” said Walia.

A 20-bedded facility in GTB Hospital in east Delhi currently caters to the physically disabled.

“Comatose accident victims will be admitted once the centre has been expanded to 50 beds in the third phase of its physical medical rehabilitation programme by the end of 2010,” said Dr U.C. Verma, medical superintendent, GTB Hospital. The AIIMS Trauma Centre has been looking for rehabilitation centres for their unclaimed comatose patients since quite some time.

“It is a huge burden for us. We cannot discharge these patients, as they have nowhere to go. And keeping these patients means we occupy beds that may otherwise be used for critical accident victim,” said Dr Adarsh Kumar, assistant professor, forensic medicine at AIIMS, who also heads the social welfare unit at the trauma centre.

“We have support from Sapna, but it is based in Alwar and ill patients have to travel 165 km with basic life-support to reach the home,” he added.